Right Getting More and More Desperate

This morning, I woke up to a headline in the Wall Street Journal that read, "Democrats to End Union Standoff." I was a little disappointed -- until I read the article. Turns out there was nothing in there that justified the headline. The whole thing seems to have stemmed from this sentence:

In a letter sent Monday, Mr. Miller asked Messrs. Walker and Fitzgerald for an in-person meeting somewhere near the Wisconsin-Illinois border.

That'd be state senate minority leader Mark Miller, Governor Walker, and senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald. That Democrats would look at current polling and think that they ought to strike while the iron is hot is hardly surprising. And the fact that Miller wants to meet near the border suggests that -- contrary to the sensationalist headline -- Miller doesn't plan on leaving Illinois.

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Republicans' Love/Hate Relationship with Democracy

Wisconsin Republicans are getting desperate. As a standoff with the people of Wisconsin and fourteen absent Democratic Senators stretches out into it's third week, it's safe to say things are not going as the GOP and Gov. Walker had envisioned. Polling shows them losing the public, several members face almost certain recall elections, and every day brings another embarrassing misstep, as the Walker administration tries to tamp down the protests at the Capitol. Just another day at work for Scooter Walker and the Wisconsin Politically Tone Deaf Orchestra.

And so, they're trying everything (short of the most obvious thing in the world; compromise) to put this Cheddar and Beer Rebellion to an end. Earlier this week, Senate majority leader Scott Fitzgerald led the passage of a bill that would fine the absent Democrats, who had left the state to deny the chamber a quorum, one-hundred dollars for every day they skipped out on the vote. That plan lasted the five minutes it took for everyone to realize that it was an illegal bill of attainder and no Democrat had anything to fear from it.

Then yesterday, Fitz made a big show of signing a second Hail Mary pass in the center of the State Senate.

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Pickpocket Republicans

Yesterday, I wrote about an ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Democracy for America supporting workers in Wisconsin against Governor Scott Walker's union busting. At the time, I said it was a good, compelling ad, akin to a documentary film. As of this writing, that ad has generated more that $200,000 to keep it on the air.

Those numbers come from across the nation, as many see the fight in Wisconsin as their own. Americans seem to be tired of watching Republicans grab what the middle class has, then turning around and giving it away to wealthy donors and corporations. Nationally, Republicans push for deep, wounding cuts to everything from PBS to Medicare, but leave giveaways to the wealthy untouched. For example, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives recently voted unanimously to extend tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to big oil, while telling workers that we're broke. This comes after demanding that $36 billion be added to the deficit in order to fund tax cuts for the top 2% of income earners. Every time a taxpayer turns around, he finds a Republican's hand in his pocket and some Wall Street type with their hand out.

That Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid money? That's yours. You paid for it. Likewise PBS, Planned Parenthood, a decent educational system, public highways, etc. All yours. And all being cut -- i.e., taken away from you -- so some oil cartel can keep getting corporate welfare or a handful of paper-shufflers and money resellers can hold on to their tax cut. At the very least, if these programs and institutions absolutely must be sold off, you should get the money. But this isn't the case. From you, to them. And here I thought Republicans were against the redistribution of wealth. Silly me.

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Comparing Weaponry in the Wisconsin Ad Wars

Earlier this week, the Republican Governors Association announced an ad buy for Wisconsin in support of Governor Walker. My first impression of the spot was that it seemed lazy and unlikely to make any difference. It's basically everything Walker has been saying all along, adapted to attack ad format. This hasn't been working for him so far and it's unlikely that converting it to ad form will make it work any better. By this time, everyone knows the facts -- that is, everyone who cares to know the facts -- and all this messaging has been spectacularly ineffective.

But you know the GOP motto; if something is failing, do more of it.



When it came out, Greg Sargent did some adbusting. The spot was "premised on a serious distortion that borders on an outright falsehood," Sargent wrote. I don't know why the equivocation though -- the ad doesn't border on being a lie, it is a lie. Walker doesn't need to do away with collective bargaining to balance the budget. He has a balanced budget now. In fact, the ad doesn't even mention bargaining, as if there's someone in Wisconsin who has no idea what this is all about and can be hoodwinked. Like I say, lazy. Not to mention insulting to people's intelligence.

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The GOP Agenda: Drive Down Job Growth, Depress Wages

Some time yesterday, I decided that I would write about the GOP's anti-jobs agenda today. So I'm swinging through my feeds last night and I come across this -- MSNBC's Rachel Maddow stole my thunder.

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Let Robert Frank's final words from that interview be what you take away here; that the GOP's focus on the deficit to the detriment of employment is a "criminal misdiagnosis of the problem." I'd add that's a deliberate misdiagnosis.

I'm going to disagree with Maddow on one point; yes, the Republicans' efforts to kill jobs will hurt President Obama in the elections -- but no, that's not the only reason they're trying to strangle off job growth everywhere it rears its head. This is, to a much larger degree, about cheap labor.

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